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1974
Oral History Interview: Oscar and Lutilla Watts
Oscar Watts
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ORAL HISTORY
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HUNTINGTON, WEST VIRGINIA 2S7O1 ASSOCIATES
ORAL HISTORY
GIFT AND RELEASE AGREEMENT
I I, the undersigned, of
_i_·-;_.. ______,_ ....,.. ,,,s ounty of ______,,_ _ _: _.,_, State of grant, convey, and transfer to the James E.
Morr ow Library Associates, a division of The Marshall University Foundation,
Inc., an educational and eleemosynary institution, all my right, title, interest, and literary property r ights in and to my testimony recorded on
19 ··· , L ', to be used for scholarly purposes, including study and rights to reproduction.
Open and usable after my review. initial Closed for a period of ______years. initial Closed for my lifetime. initial Closed for my lifetime unless special permission initial is gained from me or my assigns.
/ .: Date I - / 1 /, ·' . • -~ ------(Signature - Interviewee)
Address
(Si~?ature - Witness) AN INTERVIEW WITH:
Mr. & Mrs. Oscar Watts
CONDUCTED BY:
Elizabeth Ann Smarr
PLACE:
Huntington, w. Va.
DATE:
October 22, 1974
TRANSCRIBED BY:
Elizabeth Ann Smarr This is an interview with Oscar Watts and his wife
Lutilla Skanes Wattso conducted October 22 0 1974 0 at their home at 4250 West River Road in Huntington, West
Virginiao Mro Watts was born April 29 6 1886, and Mrso
Watts January 19 0 18910 both in log cabins on farms in the East Lynn araa of Wayne County o They grew up together and were married in August 19070 They first came to Huntington in 19100 Mro Watts has held several jobs in his life and has been a public servant for over half of his lifeo Among his offices he has been a justice of the peace and the first president of the
Airport Authorityo During the interview we also talked about their recollections of their early lives~
In the background can be heard the mantle clock 0
the refrigerator 0 and the springs of Mro Watts' chairo Mr. & Mrs. Oscar watts
EAS: This is an interview with Mr. and Mrs. Oscar watts, uh, by Elizabeth Ann Smarr. Today's date is October 22, 1974. Allright now, first I'd like to know what are your full names, both of you.
OW: Well, my full name's just Oscar Watts.
EAS: Allright
LSW: And Lutilla Skanes Watts.
EAS: Allright now when were you born?
LSW: I was born January 19, um, in ninety-one.
EAS: And Mr. Watts?
OW: Eighteen, eighteen ninety-one.
LSW: Eighteen ninety one.
EAS: Mr. Watts?
OW: I was born, uh, April the twenty- ninth, eighteen and eighty-six.
EAS: Oh, and, ah
OW: At East Lynn in a little log cabin.
EAS: Nice, and, ah, what were your parents' full names?
OW: Huh?
EAS: Your parents' names?
OW: Well, Alderson watts was my father, and Jenny Ferguson Watts was my mother.
EAS: Uh hum, and. Mrs. watts?
LSW: Um, my mother's rane was, ah, Belle Donahoe, D-O-N-A-H-O-E, CEAS: Um, hum._/ and, ah, her, my grandmother and grandfather Skanes were Absalom and Annie ••• Mr. & Mrs. Oscar Watts 2
OW: You ought to give your father's name fore you give them.
LSW: Well, Harrison, Harrison and Belle was my mother's name LEAS: Um._/ my father o
EAS: Right, uh, were you also born in East Lynn?
LSW: Born in East Lynn in a log cabin rEAS: Um._/ on a farm and, ah, that's where we made our living.
EAS: Right . Ah, do you have any brothers and sisters?
LSW: I 'd two brothers, Hartley and Roy, rEAS: Um, hum.J and a sister that passed away at nine, her name was Lilly.
EAS: Right. A--, are either of your brothers still living?
LSW: One brother living.
EAS : Allright. Mr. Watts?
OW: Well, there was nine of us children, L-EAS: Um._/ and, ah, ah, sister Leathy and Macey and brother Scott have passes away, and I have living, ah, Willard watts, lives at Wayne, Lilly Osburne, Lilly Watts Osburne, lives at Wayne, and Homer, one of my brothers, lives in Delane, Florida, and Fred the baby, the family lives in Oak--, in L LSW: Redwood City.J Redwood City, California.
EAS: Oh, I see.
LSW: And Mary •••
OW: Mary, I have a sister, uh, lives, Mrs. Mary Newman, warren Newman, lives at Lavalette, she, how old is she, she's, uh, •••
LSW: She's eighty.
OW: Eight, LEAS: Um, hum.J brother Willard is ninety-two, and sister Lilly is, will be ninety-one, uh, the eighth day of this coming May. I'll be eighty-nine the twenty ninth of April. Mr. & Mrso Oscar Watts 3
EAS: Um, yesq Now, ah, when you grew up on your farms, the respective farms, were any other members of your family, you know, besides your parents and your brothers and sisters, living with you?
OW: No, none, none in my family L-LSW: Mine._/ my father always kept a workhand or two, uh, on the farm, and, ah, my mother and, ah, Judge Ferguson's mother were cousin, ah, she, uh, they were both Ferguson's, Lucian B. Ferguson and ah his wife were both cousins of my mother. /-EAS: Um, hmm, yes sir.J There's a long story to it, that, sh, my parents, the Watts' came into Wayne County way back there in the early days of the state. Three of them, one of them settled in, ah, Wayne County, West Virginia, and the other one went to Ohio and the other Kentucky LEAS: Hum, right in the Tri-State._/ and they never had, they never knew what become of either one of them after that.
EAS: Oh, allright, and, ah, you said your grandmother.
LSW: My grandmother LOS: (Cough.)J Skanes lived with us and, ah, she was left a widow when I was just a child, and she made her home with us, LEAS: Um._/ and she was our, ah, our doctor.
EAS: ~h, what type, you know, ah, this was because, you know, it was hard to get to a doctor, wasn't it, back then?
LSW: Oh, about five and ten miles.
EAS: Right, ah, what kind of, ah, medicines, or did she use, you know, to treat members of family?
LSW: Well, she used, ah, ah, different weeds. Now, she used, ah, I've got it down here someplace, LOW: Camphor Tea._L ah, well, ah, she would, ah, gather in, ah, in the fall, she would gather things like, um, ah, murdock and, um, ah, ground ivy, milkweed, foxglove, and catnip, and elder berries for bedwetting. If children, you know, how that goes, LEAS: Right.J and, ah, for colds she kept a jar of, ah, turpentine, camphor, and lard or mutton fat, and coal oil, which she used when we had colds or something like that. And, ah, then, ah, she was, ah, a very in- Mr. & Mrs. Oscar watts 4
dustrious lady in, in working, she had to have, ah, something to do. Well, my dad raised sheep and they'd share the wool, LEAS: Um.J the sheep, and card and spin, and she had a loom that she wove her cloth for our blankets and our clothes. Believe it or not I wore what we called lindsey dresses when I was a child. L-EAS: Um, hum.J And, ah, of course, ah, mother knit and knit our hose and socks for the boys, and, ah {OW: Gloveso_L gloves, and ah, LEAS: Hats and sca.rves._/ everything we wore they made it out of this cloth thai grandmother wove L-EAS: Um._/ on her big loom. Wish I had it now.
EAS: Right (laughter) me too. And, ah, she had a special room for her loom or.
LSE: Yes, she had a special place for herb--, loom and it was always tlE re when she had L OW: (Coughs. ) _/ to, ah, mother, she never done much of the work, mother was pretty healthy and she did the work and grandmother, she would, ah, ah, by the way, I learned to card, LEAS: om._/ card the wool, and I learned to spin L-EAS: Um, hum.J and I was just a girl LOW: She o • • J but I loves it, oh, I, I, LOW: Maul ._/ I, I worked right along with grandmother.
EAS: Oh I see. Di--, this, was this one of your chores L-LSW: Uh, hub. 7 around the house, to work ••• LLSW: Yeah._} Wh--, what other type of chores did you do?
LSW: Oh, ah, of course I went to school, we walked three miles to school, and that was •••
OW: Through the mu~u and •••
LSW: Awful hard to get there, now it •••
OW: No paved roads, all mud.
LSW: Children nowadays, you know, think it's awful to do that they don't COW: Ah •• • J even want to walk a mile. But I walked three miles to school and I didn't miss very much, either cause I liked to go to school. Mr. & Mrs. Oscar watts 5
EAS: Uh, humo And, ah, s--, and how long was your school day?
LSW: Ah, we only had L-0S: Five months.J, well, it get up to six, six months in the.
OW: Not while I was going it didn 1 t, might you, you went later after I dido
LSW: Oh five and six months.
EAS: Um, hum, and you went, uh, from eight to three or • • •
LSW: Yeah.
EAS: Bout then.
OW: Ah, it didn't get out at no three o'clock.
LSW: Well, long about then 9 . It's according whether we got .through our lessons or not because they had the, we had a one school, one room school LEAS: Um.J and they had the, all the classes in that CEAS: Um._/.
OW: All of 'em went in it.
LSW: And, ah, the, our spelling class would line up from one end of the school to the other CEAS: Um._/ and we 1 d stand there, the teacher gave us out words to spell, that's the way we got our spelling, we didn't write it, and ah, course our other work we'd write, but, it was, I guess was fun for us that time cause I never wanted to miss.
EAS: Wha--, in a school, you know, um, were the, ah, children arranged to ages with the younger ones in the front and the older ones £'LSW: As you, yeah.Jin the back?
OW: Had their classes A, B, c, and, uh, first reader, second reader, and third reader and fourth and on up and that, that 1 s the ":lay they went in classes.
LSW: They was grouped in their seats, you know.
EAS: Um, hum. And, ah, well, ah, getting back to the chores Mro & Mrs. Oscar Watts 6
around, you know, your house and the farm, ah, what kind of chores did, ah, you do, Mr. watts LOW: Ah. ·· ._; at home?
OW: You mean, what we raised and •••
LSW: What • • •
EAS: Well, when you were a, when you were a boy, you know, everybody had certain chores to do like L-ow: Oh, yes, ah._/ filling the woodbox and things like thiso
OW: Ah, we lived in a log, big, ah, good sieed log house, was all one room, and we had a bed in this corner, bed in "that corner, another bed, then aad and mother another, maybe'd have a bed on the floor LEAS: Urn.J to sleep on. And then, ah, out kitchen there was, ah, was built off about eight foot from the big house and they have the emp- , ah, a roof over a, a porch in between the two. And, ah, me and my older brother, we took time bout getting up to build a fire in them orning. Well, dad would say, ah, "Oscar, get up and build a fire." Well, I knew to get up, I didn't say, "Let Willard do it," or somebody else, I, my feet hit the floor, and we kept our wood stacked on a, on this porch just outside the door, and if it snowed the wind blow the snow through and a many a morning I've gotta put out there and ca--, ca--, called a back log, we had a big fireplace, it's as big as that whole chimney there, and roll, get that back log in and put it on first, and then your fore stick and then start your fire with kindling, then come on up with it and maybe put a, another log on behind, on top of the first one I put in. And, ah, many a time I've, ah, made, left my bare tracks out there in the snow where I'd, uh, get that back log, wood corning in. And, ah, then we'd, ah, ah, build a fire in the kitchen stove, then mother'd get up, get our breakfast. Well, while she was getting breakfast, me and my older brother, he was up by that time, we'd go to the barn and feed the horses before daylight, EEAS: Right.J and, ah, very often, why we take the milk bucket and milk the cows while we were down there. And, ah, the, ah, getting back to, ah, the schools, I never had but one slate, never had no paper to write on but I had, I took a gallon of molasses across Mr. & Mrs. Oscar Watts 7
a mountain there, was about two miles over to old Aunt Beth Taber's, was taking her a gallon of sorghum molasses for thirty-five cents, and she give me a slate, it was about that thick and there was no frame around it, you could drop it off the desk, it wouldn't break. All I, that's all I had to write on all my days in school.
EAS: Um, you say about that thick, would be about what, LOW: Yeah.J fourth of an inch or .••
OW: Ah, it's about an eighth of an inch thick, it was chipped all around, and then we'd hunt slate rock for a pencil.
EAS: Like you can find, like when they're grading the roads and things?
OW: Yeah, you find, yeah slate rocks. And the first five bill ever had in my life, ah, a teacher was name, ah, Lou Ferguson, and, ah, she hired me to build the fires. Well I slept, ah, worked that five months for five dollars, I get a dollar a month for, ah, sweeping the floor out, building the fires, get there early to do it, you know. ,C-EAS: Right._7 Ah, many a time I wade in the snow half knee-deep to get there to build a fire and clean up the schoolhouse till, ah, the other children come in. I got it all on my, I didn't get it till the last day of school. The first five dollar bill I ever had in my life.
EAS: Isn't that something (laughter).
OW: Ah, growed up that way we, we had to work, w--, we all, we, it was work or not eat. We raised our wheat, and ground our flour, and we, ah, mother and the, all the, er, would can, a barrels, ah, not, ah, jars, they didn't have jars like we have, had them old stone jars like, ah, sitting over there, and she'd put, uh, a lid put down on there, take, ah, what do you call it, that, ah, ah, sealing wax CEAS: Yeah._/ melt that'n right around it, around that lid, you know, seal it. And, ah, we'd, she'd, ah, put up a barrel of pickled corn, a barrel of pickled beans, and, ah, a barrel of kraut, and then we'd, ah, make molasses and have a, ah, fifty gallon barrel in the, u--, in the smokehouse, had a smokehouse set off just a little way from the house LEAS: Um.J. And, ah, mo--, Mr. & Mrs. Oscar Watts 8
molasses go out there, was laying down on a big block of wood with a faucet here, you pull out that faucet out, draw your molasses out of that barrel. Ah, my brother, oldest brother, mother sent him out to get molasses one evening and he forgot it, and the next morning molasses all over the smokehouse , you know. They run slow, it was thick, they made molasses back in them days it was thicko Run slow and I guess that 1 s the reason went off and left it because it, it 1 d been fifteen or twenty minutes before it got, a dish had got full anyhow. But we had a time cleaning thats-- , ah, smokehouse out. L-EAS: Right.J And, ah, we 1 d fatten five or six big hogs and, ah, slaughter 1em and had a bench come across the smokehouse, one end of it, and had meat stacked up that high on it, LEAS: Um._/ sides and shoulders and, and, ah, ah, we, ah, always had plenty to eat, and I took, carried a many a dozen eggs off, eight cents a dozen, eight cents a dozen, me and my younger brother next to me, mother 1 d have a, a big split basket, get, carry that off full, take it, we had two mile and a half walk to the store, go there and she 1 d give us a list what to get, and we couldn 1 t buy a nickel worth of candy or, we couldn 1 t get can-- , we 1 d get a due bill, not any money back, they just write you out a due bill you call it, if you didn 1 t spend it all, and the next time at the store you buy on that. And, ah, I, it learnt me a lesson about children, I'd get to the store there and see a feller standing around, you know, eating a striped stick of candy and, and crackers and my mouth 1 d water, you know, and I never would eat nothing for a child after that, ah, when I growed up, without giving it some of it. I remember once come out when I was working for the county, me and Grover Hunter come out of a stand down here on lower Piedmont right, this side of the street, ah, we went in there one hot day and got us a big double deck ice cream cone, come out, as I come out the door there was a little girl standing there about half nekkid and looked up at me as pitiful, you know, I said, "Honey, you want this?" "Yes." She just grabbed, I said, "I, I don 1 t believe I want it." (Laughter) I give it to her. CEAS: Right.J And I 1 ve always been that way I, I, I love children and, ah, I wouldn 1 t mis--, mistreat a child, uh, for nothing, and I don 1 t see how anybody else could. But uh, we come up the Mr. & Mrs. Oscar Watts 9
hard way, me and my wife both, we, ah, and, ah, in a way it 1 s, it's a good, ah, it's good, ah, educationo I can go out here and take an acre of ground, ah, it won't starve me, I'll raise enough to eat. I's raised to go that. We've got a utility house out there now half full of stuff to eat that I raised right here. I've the best garden in Wayne County, I guess, right here in towno But, ah, my father was ninety when he passed away and mother was ninety-one, LLSW: (Clearing throat.1/ and, ah, we've, ah, we've, we've been married, ah, this coming, uh, next August we be married sixty-eight years, our sixty-eighth anniversary, rEAS: Um.J went to school together, growed up together.
EAS: Right, well z_-ow: (Coughs) . J you were talking about, you know, you put up, you know, your foods, like, ah, the corn and the wheat, COW: Yeah.J what kind of preparation, you know, did, ah, ,e-ow: Oh, you go out .. o ._/ you put into •
OW: And, ah, well, we turn up new grounds, take, ah, just go into the woods and clear out a big field and, ah, then would, ah, cut the logs up or saw 1em up or chop 1em up and roll 'em together, have log rolls, and maybe fifteen or twenty men come in and help you and there'd be the log piles all over that hillside there, that whole field, and, timber, ah, burn, burn timber two foot through, finest timber, just burn it up, didn't think it was no value to us there, and today it'd be worth thousands and thousands of dollars, but, ah, L-LSW: (Coughs)~-1 pile the brush in one place, the logs in another, burn, ah, the, ah~ burnt, ah. Then we'd, ah, new g=ound, usually, in laying it off, you'd take ah-- , horse, plow, the root cutter they called it, a root cutter that'd go in a, in a bull tongue plow stock and furrow it off, usually run two furrows, and then you'd plant, then when it got up big enough to work, you'd go through with a, a sharp hoes and cut the sprouts and the weeds and thin it, at 1 s how raised our corn and our cane, why we planted the bottom there below the house and we al ways made, ah, hundred, hundred fifty gallon of molasses. And, ah, you get all the molasses you wanted them days if you had money to buy it, thirty-five cents a gallon. And, but, eh, ah, we raised, mother raised lots of cabbage, Mr. & Mrs. Oscar watts 10
we'd take and hoe them up. She'd take, ah, just have us boys clean off a strip through, maybe be fifty foot long, and, ah, then each take, pull them cabbage up and turn down with the head down the roots up, then pull the dirt up to 'em. Pan the row and you go out there in the winter time and get a big head of cabbage that big, it's as sweet as could be.
EAS: Oh, just let the earth keep it LOW: Yeah._7 preserved.
OW: Preserved. You put head down, if there's any green to it it, it greened off because the leave was cut that way LEAS: Right._/ and, ah, our potatoes, why we hoe them up in the ground, I got some hoed up over there now I raised this year, two bushel. But, eh, I, ever fellow had a job to do, if he couldn't hoe corn he could thin, if he wasn't big enough to hoe he could thin corn, he could pull up the stalks. So that's the way we came up. Had two or three milk cows all the time, plenty of milk and butter and, and, ah, always killed our own meat.
EAS: Um, you smoked the meat?
LSW: Yeah.
EAS: Um, hum.
OW: Then I went out, ah, in the winter time and work making cross ties, railroad ties, they get, ah, twenty-five cents a piece for 'em, and I've drift 'em in Can Creek there, they come into East Lynn where's so cold that I had to stay in the water to keep my clothes from freezing, get out on the bank and they'd freeze stiff, get back in the water and thaw. LEAS: That's going •• a_/ Dollar a day and that was all day too, it wasn't eight hours, it was from daylight till dark.
EAS: Oh was this your first job outside the farm?
OW: Well, ah, that's one of my first jobs.
EAS: One of your first jobs outside the farm. Um ••• Mr. & Mrs. Oscar Watts 11
LSW: You asked about preserving the foods.
EAS: Um, hum.
LSW: It was pickled corn and pickled beans and kraut.
EAS: And you put it in stone jars LOW: All pickled on the farm, you know.J or in, in barrels?
LSW: No, put in a barrel.
EAS: Oh, I see. Stone jars came later, I guess.
LSW: Yes.
EAS: Oh (giggles)o
OW: And, ah
EAS: And you raised chickens and pigs.
LSW: Yes.
OW: Oh yes, yes, that was our, ah, that was our income mostly on the farm was alot of, alot of chickens L-EAS: Um, hum.J. Buy all your vegetables, ah, sugar and coffee, we'd get three pound jar of apple coffee for a quarter.
EAS: Yes sir, and.
OW: And they had, ah, a gift coupon, you know, and you get around, I remember I sent off, I got me a, ah, a ring with five apple coupons (laughter).
EAS: Sort of like boxtops. Like boxtops today.
OW: Yeah. If pepple had to do what we had to do it would be terrible.
EAS: Um, hum, ah, I think you mentioned first you made your own soap?
OW: Oh yeah LLSW: Yeah.J we set a barrel up out in the Mr. & Mrso Oscar Watts 12
corner of the garden made of wood, ah, a great big, a huge flour barrel, we'd buy our flour by the barrel, big wooden barrel it come in and we 1 d fill that with wood ashes.
EAS: From the fireplace.
OW: Ah, and ah, when spring come she'd have us haul water and pour in there and it 1 d just drain down through and come out a, a faucet down here, a little crawl, and make soap.
LSW: It was lye o
OW: Lye, the lye from them wood ashes we'd make our soap.
&'\S: Was it boiled, L LSW: Uh •• • J or what?
LSW: When, eh, we'd butcher hogs you'd take the fat from the, uh, entrails L-OW: Entrails of the hogs.J of the hogs, and ah, certain fats, you know, from the hogs and save it and put it into that lye and make your soap out of it.
EAS: Ah. Did you put it together in
LSW: Yeah we boiled it till, ah, and the lye would eat all that up, you know, and believe me it was soap LEAS: Oh._/ and we cooked it, and, and ah, I know mother made it and, ah, she'd make it and it'd be whiter, you know, and, ah, most times, and she'd cut it out in, ah, LOW: Cakes._/ in cakes, you know, just so big and lay it on the porch to dry out and it was all ready, ready to use.
EAS: How often did, ah, your mother make soap?
LSW: Well, ah, when, butchering time, in the fall.
EAS: In the fall.
OW:· That was th·e time they I d butcher, butcher hogs and save all those entrails CEAS: Yes.J ah, they never wasted anything. L-LSW: Sauce out of it.J Made head sauce out of the hog's head, they 1 d call it that, head cheese I think they call it now but head sauce I think we Mr. & Mrs. Oscar watts 13
called it and make that up with meal, dried up and boiled through the head (inaudible).
EAS: Ah, what was, we're speaking of food, you know, a, a typical meal? was it.
LSW: Oh then we had potatoes and bean and, and, and eggs £ow: Eggs.J and lots of, ah, bean, and, ah, we'd let them dry, also, on the stalk, and bring 'em in and ah, we'd out •em in fat to get the bean out of the hull and we, ah, we, that ' s the way you gotta keep beans. We always had some of those too because they always planted the beans right in the corn I'EAS: Uh, huh.J and we had, ah, ah, why we had _(clock gongs) pickled stuff, and pickled beans and •••
OW: Buttermilk and butter, molasses, ah, pickled lots of blackberries and canned 'em, we had, ah, LLSW: Apples.J apples, we had plenty to eat. LEAS: Yeah._/ We'd pick them two or three bushels sacks full of them dried beans, lay 1em down there and then you take a poker or a long stick, that long, and go to beating on 'em, and you beat them for maybe thirty minutes or longer, keep turning ~m and beating 1em, then put ~mouton a big sheet of, a big sheet or a cloth of some kind and got to get the hulls out of 1em. LEAS: Yes ._/ That's the way we got our soup beans. Mother made, ah, most of them washed at the creek, and they'd go down to the creek start a fire with a big kettle to boil the water, and then they'd carry the washboard one of these you go up and down on (laughter) and that's, and that's the way the old people did their washing back theno
EAS: Use the same soap for the 0 our clothes ,C-LSW: Yeah._/ LOW: YeahoJ and people alike. And, and, ah, well how much schooling, getting back to it well how much schooling did you get then? Nowadays we start at age six and go on till we're sixteen you can, but how much schooling did you get?
LSW: Well, ah, they wasn't any high school back there LOW: Didn't have a high school.J and ah, we studied, ah, what you'd, ah, probably called ninth and tenth grade school books L-EAS: um.J and we studied that Mro & Mrs. Oscar watts 14
and, ah, course if we went away from school, ah, at times when they was suspended away from school and what learning we got other than that we, we just got it out of books.
EAS: Allright, and • • • (break in tape).
OW: My brother has two and was called upon for the serviceo I lived here in Huntington then. And, ah, I took the five-o-two. I went up to take the, ah, training for I had to take the, ah, training for, ah, an officer's in the army. Well what happened was six or seven of us took the examination at Perkins Filling Station. Man said come back. Little more I than went up and had to have a high school certificate with us. I said, "High school?" "Yes." I said, "We didn't have any high school when I went to school." And he says, "I'm sorry." Then I said, "Now I' 11 tell you one thing, if, if you pass me I'll do a bit better job than some of these certified squirts that went through high school, ah, that your sending." And, ah, well, ah, you see when we went through school well all the, ah, McClures had a cap and g(l)wn plan we could go over there or come to Marshall College, there wasn't no high school. And, ah, our parents just wasn't able to send us, that's all, it cost money. I was working on the real estate business at that time and, ah, come back down to the office we had at 313 9th street bout where The Huntington Store is now called The Ivy, and, ah, "Well how'd you make it?" I said, "I failed." "You failed?" "Yes it was just, ah, on my education qualification." Said, '"Hell's fire, I didn't think you had to be educated to fight!" (Laughter)" you go u.e to the army to_fight!" Well, I didn't get to go, LEAS: Uh, huh._/ but, ah, I'd_do alot more than some of them that they was sending/ EAS: Right.J but, eh
EAS: Well, ah, when you weren't working on your parent's farms or not on a job, um what did you do normally in your leisure time, if you had any?
OW: Well you didn't have much leisure time, if you didn't, if you wasn't working in the crop you was turning new ground for the next year, L-EAS: Um.J ah, then when Mro & Mrs. Oscar Watts 15
we got our corn laid by, father would, ah, have us boys, oh it's about, ah, twelve miles, ah, bottom above the house, go up there and cut down green saplings and drag 1em off, we had chop them stove wood lengths about that long. Then when the good school comes back by, walk home and get a load of stove wood for your home. We had us that corn why dried out for tea for winter. And, ah, well we all had to have to do, we never had no leisure time.
EAS: Um.
LSW: Well, on the weekends, uh, uh, children would gather together and, and you know.
OW: Oh yeah, we, we had to have apple peelings and bean stringings and skip to my lou and post office.
LSW: They made taffy or popped corn and always gathered, ah, ah, lots of walnuts and hickory nuts and chestnuts and all that kind of stuff you know for the winter. And, ah, sometimes we, you know, we made taffy, had a taffy pull and, ah, we had good fun.
EAS: Um, hum.
OW: We had, done stuff just as much as we knew how.
LSW: Anything we, ah, ah, great to do to sing, and, ah, my dad taught, ah, singing school and he gave books out and we'd all have singing fests and, ah, he'd teach us different notes to sing, bass or tenor and alto, and, and we just had a time.
OW: We had an organ in the church we sung in this choir everyday and the, and sing, now they had •••
LSW: Had one of those singer, you know.
EAS: Oh the full chorus?
OW: Yes (hums) they play false, you know (laughter).
EAS: Ah, which church, ah, was this? Mr 0 & Mrs. Oscar Watts 16
LSW: The Christian Church.
OW: Christian Church on, ah, Cabin Creek there, ah, where, was where we used to sing. He was a wonderful singer, he, he, he could sing high tenor just up at Hurstone (?) he, ah, my father was bass singer, and sister Lilly and we all had big choir, all of us and a couple of others come fer miles horseback, LEsw: (Coughs).J buggies and we grew up there to the church up there, every Sunday it would be loaded. I 1 ve sung through class there with forty-two other, come, ah, from, ah, ah, six up to twelve, we's just ah, ah, now the church standing empty, no church.
EAS: Oh, that 1 s bad.
OW: Automobiles took it's place.
EAS: Right, ah, now you say you two grew up together.
OW: All our life.
EAS: You 1 ve known each other all, all your lives.
OW: Yeah, all our, you see she was, she wasn't hardly seventeen was you, when you was married, when we was married, and I was twenty-one and they asked why 1 d you marry, married a girl so young, I said I really grew up to the notion (laughter) (inaudible).
EAS: And, ah, how many children did you have?
LSW: Had one child COW: One daughter.J and among, ahL her name's Irma Watt Kidd LOW: She lives over here._/ lives next door, and one grandchild, David Kidd, he goes to Marshall now, this is his second year. L-EAS: Allright now •• _/ he's g--, taking nursing.
EAS: Wh--, when did you first come to Huntington? To Huntington? COW: When what?J When did you first come to this area, to Huntington?
OW: 1910. Mr. & Mrs. Oscar Watts 17
EAS: 1910.
OW: They brought me up there at 9th street and, ah, L LSW: Oh Oscar._/ 4th avenue and tied me up to a telegraph pole there (laughter) and (inaudible) streetcar about getting a job there L-LSW: For heaven's sake._/ (laughter) I streetcared in Cincinnatti in nineteen hundred and six, was running on the regular st--, ah, regular 1 s run when they had the San Francisco earthquake, round May. I was on a streetcar in that. Well, when they hired they said, 11 About when you have an accident make the report just like it happened. Tell the truth. 11 Well, I was coming out through Norwood on the run my car and here come a cake wagon out of just a dark, a God awful dark place, ah, and he had turned in and I hit right behind the horse, took all the gears off of him and, ah, had cakes, pies scattered for a half a block there and that horse was out, you know, heading (laughs), eh, ah, heading back down. I found the, eh, the fellow drives the horse's, ah, wagon hat, ah, ah, in the car, ah, beated up, so I made my report and it said, 11 How fast was car moving?" I said, 11 Full speed. 11 That's which it was, it, they told, told me to tell the truth about it. On that day when I come in to, hit and run, after, they fired me. Well, that was it. I come to Huntington, old, W. W. McGooghan (?) was, ah, streetcars was the Ohio Valley. Went around there applied for a job, he says, ah, 11 Did you ever streetcar before?" 11 Yes. 11 11 Where? 11 11 Cincinnatti. 11 11 Why 1 d you 11 11 11 11 quit there?" I said, They fired me. • They fired you? 11 What for? 11 And I told him, he said, 11 I 1 m gonna give you a job cause you told the truth" (laughter). And I went to work surely in nineteen hundred and ten, and we moved up from the country up there at, ah, ah first we got married then when I was just married, they had, ah, I worked three years on the cars and was a dispatcher at the Ohio Valley the last two years we went. And, ah CLSW: Tell her_ •• • _I but that taught it pays ya to tell the truth/ EAS: Uh._/ heck now I'd rather get a job cause I told the truth, if I had lied to him he would have found out.
EAS: Oh, so you stayed here, stayed in the Huntington area for Cow: Yeah, I been here ever since then and, ah .J sixty four years. Mr. & Mrs . Oscar Watts 18
OW: I went to, ah, the first office I ever had was, ah, justice of the peace in my home district up there where we were raised, and I think were cut out of a single spot would be. Ah, anyhow we moved down here when I was on the city council run for House of Delegate, ah, 1927 I served the House of Delegates and I introduced the first chain store bill that was ever introduced in the state of West Virginia. Afterwards the Krogers and the A&Ps coming in and just one store after another, just a pack of trouble. And those stores had the highest tax rates. LEAS: Uh.J Well it didn 1 t pass that, that time but later they passed it. Then I introduced the first bill that ran in the newspapers. And, ah, then in thirty five I, ah, run again, was elected to the legislature, and then follows in thirty-seven I was working in Washington D.C. for Senator M. N. Neely in the Senate Office building. And, ah, I run for official in county court and was elected and I served, ah, twenty-four years on the, on county court. I 1 m an authority of the airport and the athletic field over here, wouldn't have that, our boys had to go away and play football, had no field here. And, ah, the court set up a fund for my boys, and ah, Alfred- John Land was the clerk and later want the football playing, no, and we, we can used setting out, you put one in Kenova and one in Westmoreland, we'll go along, block for block, so that's what we did, and I built this athletic field over here with our part and the, ah, what you call a field house down there in Kenova. I was the man that put that in down there. And when I went on that airport I had a time getting anybody to work any. And finally Pete Fry went along with me and he went out through there, tried to get the option on the land, you know. Pete owned it, he'd sell it out the price went away up, and I said, "Well, we'll just have to go to circuit court and let 'em send three, ah, competent men to put a value on it." That's, you can do that by law, and that's what I did, and we bought that airport for thirty thousand dollars on that site, and ah, had to do this the same way, this athletic field, had to take that into court and have appraisers on it and, ah, that's one of the nicest airports in -the country now. And everybody's, uh, kick about the cutback you go out here, there's a fellow on Piedmont Road name of Smith. Everything that was done that was that was Progressive he was against it, you know. He was a fellow to be about that if we could pass the legislation Mr. & Mrs. Oscar watts 19
or, or vote to, ah, oh I think about, ah, bout to about ten cents on land or year's taxes. He hollered out and I said, "Well I expect it'll cost you ten cents extry, now I'll just give your dime right here if you want it. Pay yours." (Laughter) feller had no trouble with him. But, eh, I've been busy, eh, I's up there five year, and what they did is the people ought to do something instead of sitting. The country wouldn't be in the shape it is today CEAS: Um.J.
LSW: And I was the first, uh, full deputy Cow: Sheriff._/ even better than sheriff in Wayne, in Wayne City.
EAS: Ah, what, ah, what, when was this?
OW: Nineteen hundred • ••
LSW: Thirty- seven, thirty-eighto
OW: Ah, in, ah, ah, thirty-eight, thirty- seven.
LSW: Bout that, L-OW: Back in there._/ I worked under Clifford Lee .
OW: She saved the pistol (laughter).
EAS: Wha--, what were you doing?
LSW: I, I collected taxes, county, give 'em inspections you know, the county too, and, ah • ••
OW: Worked in an office.
LSW: Worked in the officeo
OW: Well she worked partly as a field deputy, she got the field deputy work because I know she must have thought that I was gone, and ah, I was with her when she arrested any, and ah, (laughter) I got swept out.
LSW: Most of our, ah, chores was collecting taxes LEAS: UmoJ.
OW: Her greatest job was collecting taxes. Mr. & Mrs. Oscar Watts 20
EM: Yes, did, ah, the people you collected from did they treat you differently, ah, because you were a woman or
LSW: Well, ah, ah, just a few LEM: Um,J up in, ah, that didn't approve of it, and wouldn't even pay me, they felt sort of, ah, not obliged to pay their taxes rather than to pay me. rEM: Um.~ But I went along and collected.
EM: Um, hum. Ah, was, ah, now you came to Huntington for sixty- four years, CLSW: Um, hum.J ah, have you seen any changes in Huntington since 1910?
LSW: Oh my goodness, yes.
OW: I was in the legislature past, well it took, ah, before we went to Huntington.
EM: Um, hum.
LSW: When we first come here all these bottoms LOW: Cornfields.J was cornfields. The streetcar line went down to (clears throat) the corn on both sides, you know went down •••
OW: Like a little highway everywhere, the streetcar line was.
LSW: And ah, law, yes at my Aunt Lucy's we didn't have close neighbors or, a awful, awful lot of things have happened.
EM: And anything that particularly the, stands out in your mind was, ah, something that really changed Huntington particularly?
OW: Oh, I didn't quite catch you.
EM: Uh, well, ah, is there anything you know that you think really changed Huntington in the time you •••
OW: Yes fine, yes, yes. If I had my way about we would have a, a different city government LEAS: Ah •• • _7.
LSW: Well, ah •••
OW: Well I, I think, eh, I think each, ah, ward should have a Mr. & Mrs. Oscar watts 21
representative and not one at large. Now a fellow like, ah, they have two or three at large in case of a tie or something like that, but now, ah, I think each ward or the people in from that ward should have a say-so in a pick of who's gonna represent them.
EAS: Ah, was this, ah, did they ever do that? The ward.
OW: Well, used to rEAS: Used to.J that's the way we used to have it.
EAS: Oh I see.
OW: Now when I was on the town for a~ why eh, from this ward cause from this ward and, eh, now the feller's that's representing us weren't for it down in his own district in a ward, but till he's, he's our councilman.
EAS: Ah
OW: That's not right.
EAS: Um. What about.
OW: And I'm for a council form of government with a mayor, let him run and be elected. Why the way they've got this thing up here it's cost the taxpayers three times to operate than did when I was on the council. They brung 'em in here, ship 'em in here, think, nobody here's got sense to do the job, got to ship one in. And he'll quick make the oven, ah, big tail job there take all the money. And it's not right. LEAS: Um._'1 After you run, ah, the way it is now you see there's forty two running for council. Well they pick their seven and they go right straight through with that seven. Then these others all just getting splattered you know, get it fine till he beat 'em they didn't, they didn't endorse him they, but he beat 1em, i-EAS: Yeah.J but he's the only one and you, you remember the Chet Hunt melee.
EAS: Yeah.
OW: They just got a chain there and, and Chet kept, eh, Mr. & Mrs. Oscar Watts 22
you just can't beat it. LEAS: No.J Ah, if they just pick seven and run against them they'd beat 1em but here's John Jones over here thinks he could be elected and Bill Griffin here thinks he can beat him until they're back at one another's throat. But that seven goes right down the load, that's the way they hold straight.
EAS: Now, ah, what about, ha--, has, ah, not the government of Huntington, say, but the character of Huntington as it grew more, you know, with the factories coming in, how, how did these, I wonder, change Huntington?
LSW: Well, ah, course there were m--, more people and the factories begun to come in and more people and l-OW: On, it started to grow.Jnaturally it, ah, made a big change in that and more business £""EAS: Uh._/ course, ah •••
OW: Now there's more people wanting to get out of Huntington than is wanting to come in. You go all around outside, fine homes built to get out of Huntington, get out of this, tax you to death. And, ah, well if a fellow's in there a certain so many years he don't do a good job why he'd go out just like anybody else, he pays. LLSW: Well •••_/ But the way it is now they can keep you right in there £""EAS: Um .J regardless.
LSW: Now, transportation was the streetcar, you know, CEAS: Um.J cost just a nickel to go to town LEAS: Um.Janda nickel back. Well I've, ah, ah, ah, lived by the, get together and we'd walk to town to save a nickel, maybe take that nickel and go to the picture show, and walk back, and ah, we enjoyed it sometimes.
EAS: Now it costs thirty-cents to go on a bus.
LSW: Yes.
OW: On a streetcar on the first morning I had shift the car barn that's up here at the bus barn now, they call it, ah, my father and mother lived righ on 16th street east out there, in, at, between 9th and 10th avenue Mr. & Mrs. Oscar watts 23
on 16th street east, and I had to be over here at the car barn at three-thirty in the morning. Well I stayed up there and buddy I had to walk to the car barn the first two mornings. All show up at three-thirty. I didn't get anything the first day, on the second day I caught a run up there in case some man come in that didn't come take his run out why they have to take a man out to take 1im. i_-EAS: Right.J Ah, I walked that, ah, at roll there three-thirty for sure. You get a fellow to walk that now.
EAS: I don't think very many would.
OW: Bout eight miles.
EAS: Um, I, i_- OW: Course .J I don't know exactly how many but it's a long
OW: It a long way. You walk
LSW: And the city plant paid all of ~m either.
OW: About seventeen and a half cents a mile for about a, for about a run I'd get seventeen and a half cents an hour. Dollar seventy five cents for ten hours work. LEAS: Um._/ And I'd take it if I'd get it.
EAS: On, uh, well • . OW: Now we've saw, ah, Huntington about thirty-five thousand when we come here, population. And I saw it grow up about, ah, I built houses all over Westmoreland, sold 1em, used to be in the real estate business. Went into politics, I'd a had something if I'd stayed in the real estate business (laughter).
EAS: Well, ah
OW: But! was proud of what I did I, I look back and see it, you know, and, ah, ah, my picture's out there at the airport, first, first president of the airport authority.
EAS: Is that right? Mr. & Mrso Oscar watts 24
OW: I put in eleven years on that, didn't get no extra money LEAS: Um._/ worked at it CEAS: You said ••• _/ seventy- five dollars a month, that's what the court paid when I went on, seventy-five, that was just five hundred and fifty dollars, you know (laughter).
EAS : Oh, uh, ah, you said that you tried to get join the army in, ah, World War I, ah, but they wouldn't take you. Ah, how did, ah, World War I affect your, besides being rejected for the army?
OW: It didn't, ah, ah, my brother come back. You mean how it affected me?
EAS : Uh, more or less LOW: Well, ah, ah • • • _/ the change in life style.
OW: Well I, ah, ah, I didn't say anything but I thought alot it, (laughter) but, eh, I di-- , I didn't blame him because he had orders to go try, you know, I didn't blame him, LEAS: Right, right.J but eh, my brother came back and now he was married and got a wife then, ah, I, the first job I had on the road, salesman, was H.J. Hines Company, fifty-seven varieties. I worked Huntington over the county, part of Boone. I worked thirty-five dollars a week, for then that was a good job L-EAS: Uh._/ thirty- five dollars a week, and meals, and we couldn't, ah, we couldn't, ah, have your own car and drive it, you had to go by bus, walk or taxi . CLSW: Right.J Oh, the first job, on the road, ah, I went up to Pikeville at the head of Coal River went off got me place to stay all night, and the next morning there was a taxi parked o ver there and there was eight of us got in it and we'd go to these stores and there'd be a line of salesman there and the man, we couldn't sell nothing, he, he, he'd ma-- , he made you stand there and wait, I never got an offer all dayo Next morning they would "Come on Watts," I say, "You fellows go on have a good time. I I m gonna work by myself." And, ah, I done all right.
EAS: Um. Ah, why, ah, you know, how way your, during the Depression how was your, the conditions, any effect, effect on your lives during the Depression, the ••• Mr. & Mrso Oscar Watts 25
LSW: Oh, it was, see we were hard up LEAS: And, ah •••_/ and, ah, we, ah, ah, at that time he was out of work and we were on, ah, he, we worked on, ah, UPA benefit, and ah, LOW: I worked on the •••JI worked on some in the sewing rooms ;-EAS: Uh.J.
OW: That was during the Depression LLSW: Yeah._/ well I got, ah, ah, thirteen dollars a week for investigating, ah, Lincoln district up here at Brenner County, and ah, first on car and gasoline, thirteen dollars a week. And, ah, went up there and the was the investigation into the old lady, widder lady lived up a holler, house and, ah, she, we go up searched all, we had the authority to see what they had in the house to eat. Ah, she had a half a gallon of blackberries, had a little, not much, much, a ten-pound bag of meal in the house, that's all she had to eat, and she cried cause if her husband had lived she wouldn-' t be in bad shape, she sat there talking about it and I cried too, widaer. And I give her an order, ah, ah, ah, give BID an order to a store for so much and I give her an order down, ah, at a store there in Crum for five dollars worth of food. And I come in the, that, that, Saturday evening and here I, I was our of a job, they cut me out cause I give her order. L-EAS: Oh._/ And, ah, I went over to the head man and I said, "How come that you cut me off, ah, because I give that order to that old lady?" "Well I don't know, so- and-so over there, he had her over at the court house there at the corner where, where the court'd meet. And I said, "How did you come to cut me off, because I give that old lady an order for food that there time?" Says, "Well I, I don't like your attitude." I said, "I don't like you and I don't like you since I first saw you." And said, "Well you can get out of here. 11 I said, "No I won't get out of here. I was here. I was here when you come and I'll be here when you've gone." LEAS: Oh . _/ I say~, "You be ~ure and don't you cut no Republicans off LEAS: Oh._/ cause you get in trouble if you do." I was a democrat (laughter).
EAS: Well, ah, I see we're running out of tape and so, why don 1 t we, ah, I think I've covered just about everything.